Show Don’t Tell by Rush

From now on, when you are contacted by a vendor, the first thing(s) you do is

• refuse to listen to (or read) any marketing material, especially if they use any buzzwords (and, in fact, point out the minute they say one that you will hang up on them if they say it, or a prepared list of buzzwords you keep beside your phone, because it’s all Hogwash)
• refuse to review any “case studies” until you see the solution in action, and even then refuse them unless they contain hard numbers based on standard metrics that you can compute yourself pre- and post-implementation (a client stating they saw “significant” savings is NOT a case study, it’s hearsay)
• refuse their pre-recorded / scripted 30 minute intro demo until they tell you, in plain English, what problems their platform solves and why they think it will help you (and maybe even ensure the contract they will ask you to sign is also in plain English)

Once the vendor tells you:

• what procurement problems and pain points their platform solves
• how it does it (no techno-babble bullcr@p, plain English; no mention of AI, and definitely no mention of Gen-AI [which is bad for Procurement] because if it uses real ML then they can tell you what algorithms they use, and what confidence you can have based on what level of data is available)
• and why the vendor is the right vendor to deliver the solution to you

Then you agree to a demo that covers the specific pain points you want addressed, provided that, if you like what you see, you can take it for a test drive. Nothing stops a true multi-tenant SaaS solution provider from spinning up a sandbox instance for you to play with, at zero cost, as it should literally be the flick of a switch (or letting you run one real sourcing event at a trial cost). The only significant charge should be if you want to see it in action on your data, in which case you should be prepared to pay a standard daily consulting rate to load your data (but, to be honest, you shouldn’t do this until you are sure the vendor is going to be the finalist, or the runner up, in your selection process as a final step, since a test drive on standard dummy data will illuminate most of the functionality supported).

You need to see a platform in action to understand if you can, and will, use it to solve your problems.

So, if it isn’t already, your new mantra for procurement software solution providers is Show Don’t Tell!